Smalls' Run ...May 13, 1862 ... Escape from Slavery!

Smalls' Run ... May 13, 1862 ... Escape from Slavery! is the powerful account of a little-known escape that occurred in Charleston, South Carolina - smack in the heart of the Confederacy, early in the Civil War. Robert Smalls, a young slave harbor pilot, led a crew of slave sailors and their families to freedom by commandeering a confederate transport, loaded with guns and munitions, and running a rebel gauntlet to reach then surrender the boat to the blockading Union flotilla. This act became an early war victory for the Union. Smalls met with President Lincoln, spoke before Congress, received prize money, and was appointed Captain of the commandeered transport, becoming the first black officer in the U.S. Navy. Smalls later served in the South Carolina State legislature, and five terms in the U.S. Congress during Reconstruction. In South Carolina, he introduced legislation creating the first free and compulsory school system and was thereafter in the forefront of the struggle for civil rights. An extraordinary hero and citizen, Smalls died in 1915 and is buried in Beaufort, South Carolina. About the Author: Ric V. Solano, a Chicagoan, was a World War II merchant seaman, newspaper reporter, correspondent, management consultant, academic, and executive assistant to the Chancellor, University of California, San Diego, before becoming a PhD psychotherapist in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His earlier book was Yaqui Woman and the Crystal Cactus, and his next book is Confronting Carlos Castaneda ... and Selected Stories, based on time spent with Castaneda in Baja, Mexico in 1988 Publisher's website: http://SBPRA.com/RicVSolano